Cook Takes on Neil Diamond

Well, Top 5 week on this season of American Idol meant the songs of Neil Diamond. I have to say...I was excited. I may not love Neil Diamond himself, but he's got some great songs, songs that could be AMAZING once David Cook got his hands on them and did a little tweaking to make them fit him. Right??? I mean, just imagine...Cookie singing Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon...staring into your eyes...going into those moments where he gets lost in the music and his eyes close for a moment...hitting those amazing power notes. Who would not be *poof* *thud* *dead* over that?!!?!?!?! Or he could have maybe done Red Red Wine. Yeah, I know that UB40 turned it into a Reggae hit, but Cookie could have made it rock. You know he could have.

There were only a few things going into Neil Diamond week that I was dreading. 1 - hearing Archie destroy something like Sweet Caroline or Coming to America (and he destroyed not one, but BOTH!!!) 2 - Cookie doing He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother...I would have been a puddle of tears on the floor...I don't think I could handle it...(and he thankfully saved me from that fate) 3 - David Cook doing Neil Diamond songs that I'd never heard before.

And he did. He chose two songs from Neil Diamond's massive catalogue that I had never heard before. Augh!!! When I heard what he was doing, I went into panic mode. Now, I may not be the biggest Neil Diamond afficionado in the world, so it's not too surprising that I might not know some of these songs...but I know the big hits. I know the ones that people will recognize. And on AI, you need people to recognize your song!!! I was worried for him. I thought this could spell disaster.

I didn't need to worry.

David started us off with I'm Alive, rocking out with the Les Paul. And you know what? I may not have known the song...but I realized that it really, honestly didn't matter. In fact, I came to the conclusion that it was better that I didn't know the song. Because then I couldn't compare him and his version to Neil Diamond and his version of the song (like I couldn't stop myself from doing with Archie...Ugh...Bad bad bad bad BAD! He KILLED Sweet Caroline. But that is not for this blog. Sorry.) And I really, really liked it. It wasn't GREAT like I was hoping for...but it was really pretty good, in a night filled with horror after horror. I've never seen a more disappointing night of AI. Cookie was the one light in the darkness. Anyways...check this out and see for yourself how David did with I'm Alive.



Not bad, right? Right. Well, it didn't end there. This night was the first time of the season when the contestants did two songs each. So David's next song was yet another one that I didn't know. Dammit. Why is he doing this to me? I was worried and panicking and all that jazz again. Especially since everyone (for the most part) was seriously stinking up the joint. But, David was doing a song called All I Really Need is You. The title worked for me. I would be okay with him singing something like that to me. No Les Paul this time, but an acoustic guitar. And he knocked this one out of the park!!! Wow. Gorgeous, sexy voice, sexy song, all the right looks right into the camera...wow. It was almost perfection. The only way it would have been better would be for him to be sitting on my bed with his acoustic guitar and singing to me and only me. I'll leave you to imagine where I'm headed with this. LOL. Anyways...check it out. You know you wanna.



And did you get a load of how HOT he was that night? Seriously. I need a cold shower.

So...I was worried for nothing. You would think that I would realize after all of these weeks, and after all the times I've been worried with him, and how he blew me away time and time again...that there is nothing to worry about. That he is going to make me fall for him harder and harder each time he comes out on that stage. That he can pretty much do no wrong. *sigh*

More soon.

Cookie Does Broadway???

So...it seems like a number of people were surprised when American Idol strutted out Andrew Lloyd Webber week, and David Cook knocked Music of the Night out of the ballpark. How the heck can this guy be this good???



It seems that a lot of people didn't realize that David actually has quite a background in doing musical theater. And we already knew that he had an amazing voice and tons of control over it. So, hitting those GORGEOUS glory notes shouldn't have really been a surprise. Especially after watching him perform Make 'Em Laugh from Singin' in the Rain in a high school theater production.



It can even be traced further back than high school. David credits his elementary school music teacher with encouraging him to sing. Here he is singing a solo in his 5th grade Christmas production. The video quality here is bad...but you can hear his sweet little voice in it really well.



Oh yeah, and if you haven't purchased the studio version of David's Music of the Night yet...DO IT NOW! Seriously. It is beyond perfection. He hits all the notes he hit in the live performance, only somehow even more clearly and perfectly. It is gorgeous. It will make you melt into a puddle of goo on the floor over and over and over again. So go and download it. You won't regret it.

So, next week they will be performing songs from the Neil Diamond songbook. Part of me hopes Cookie will perform Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon. Which likely means that he'll go with something completely different that has us all in a panic about how he'll manage to pull it off, which actually means that he'll hit another homerun with it, and we'll all be in awe of how he could manage to do that song and make it sound like himself, but WOW he did it! Stay tuned. I know I will be.